Yankees need a power surge from Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton in fight for 2nd wild card
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Aaron Judge was on the field Tuesday afternoon, standing in as Luis Severino threw a bullpen session. The Yankees slugger was ready. After passing a cardiovascular exam and hitting on Monday, Judge was activated off the COVID-19 list before Tuesday’s game against the Rays at Tropicana FIeld.
“I’m really excited to have him back,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “We were over at the complex yesterday, where him and Luke (Voit) and (Kyle Higashioka) were all hitting off the (high-velocity) machine and breaking ball machine and looking really good,” Boone said. “Obviously very excited to have him back.”
The Yankees need something to spark them and not just because they are facing the team in the division that has frustrated them the most over the past few years.
But the Rays are now just a team in the way, not the one the Yankees are truly chasing. After this past weekend, where the Yankees suffered two “worst loss of the season,” type losses to the Red Sox in just a four-game series, the American League East division is out of their reach. They go into Tuesday night’s game against the Rays 9 1/2 games behind Boston. The Rays, who are loading up before Friday’s trade deadline with the addition of Nelson Cruz last week and expected to add a pitcher this week, will battle Boston down the stretch to win the division. The loser will claim the first wild card spot.
The Yankees, who are 8-18 against the two top teams in the division, have a mission in these last 64 games. That is to beat out the rest of the bunch — Oakland, Seattle and Toronto— to get the second wild card and then hope they can get hot. The Yankees went into Tuesday night’s series opener 3 1/2 games back of the A’s for that second playoff spot.
The Yankees go into this series with an 11.3% chance of making the playoffs according to Baseball-Reference.com’s algorithms.
And it’s noticeable.
One scout watching the Yankees this week said “they’ve certainly lost that swagger they have always had. They are no longer the bully on the block.”
The Yankees need Judge, who had an All-Star worthy first half, to get them back on track for that mission. Judge was hitting .282/.375./.526 with 21 homers in 84 games before the break this season. After three years of having his seasons derailed by injuries, Judge had been relatively healthy to start this season, missing just five games through the first 84 for the normal off days and nicks and bruises.
But then the slugger tested positive for the coronavirus coming back from the All-Star Game, and while the Yankees have gone 5-4 in the games since then, that’s not enough. Their offense continued to struggle without him.
Monday, Judge hit at the Yankees spring training complex trying to prove he was ready after having had to quarantine.
“Just the endurance of getting through it, and how’s he responding. How’s he bouncing back. Is he able to do the volume and stuff and I thought he was really good,” said Boone. “He felt really good after and then today as well, has been feeling really strong the last few days.”
So, hopefully he can spark an offense that lacked power while he was out.
Most notably, the power game has struggled without Judge, with the Bombers slugging just .416 in their last nine games. The face of those struggles is Giancarlo Stanton. The slugger has gone 7-for-36 with one home run, four RBI and 15 strikeouts at a time when the Yankees needed him to step up into Judge’s role.
While Stanton’s bloop hit in the shadows did spark the Yankees’ eighth-inning rally on Saturday for their only win over the Red Sox — and he did have four hits over the four games — there was no power. He had one double and six ugly strikeouts.
“He’ll have those at-bats where he’s off balance and a little disjointed,” manager Aaron Boone said. “It doesn’t always look pretty when he makes outs. He’s so smart, and so disciplined to his plan that he can go up there and next thing you know it’s 115 off the bat and it’s in a big situation.
“So, I think he’s obviously always working to kind of get in that strong hitting position and to be athletic up there. But I think these last few days, there’s been some at bats where he’s just been off balance a little bit.”
Getting Judge — and potentially catcher Kyle Higashioka, who was also on the COVID-19 list — back could help balance the Yankees lineup again. If Stanton, who has always been an incredibly streaky hitter, could get back in balance at the plate too, that would help the Yankees in their race for that second wild card spot.
